An amusement device for providing a composite image formed by combining a first image component on an image carrying substrate seen by direct transmission from a front of the carrier with a second image component seen, simultaneously, by reflection in a mirror behind the carrier is known from the prior art and has been commercial for many years.
In particular, U.S. Pat. No. 4,854,591, issued in 1989 and invented by the present applicant, teaches a three dimensional puzzle in which cubes or tiles having visual material thereon are arranged on or in front of a reflective surface so that when the cubes or tiles are correctly arranged, the image of the visual material on the cubes; or tiles seen, simultaneously, by direct transmission which forms the first image component and the reflected image of the visual material which forms the second image component are seen simultaneously, the image component combine to form a continuous composite image.
However, as the second, reflected image component of the composite image is simply a laterally inverted image of the first image component simultaneously seen directly by the spectator, the composite image resulting from the combination of the first and second image components can be readily predicted or is obvious to the spectator, the more so as the first image is symmetrical, so that the resulting composite image is not surprising and can be readily predicted by casual observation.
In a development of the invention taught by the above patent, which development has been widely sold for many years under the name “Rubik's illusion”, also invented by the present applicant, the tiles or blocks arranged in front of an upright mirror have upper faces which are corrugated with each corrugation extending parallel to the mirror surface and having the cross-section of an isosceles triangle providing an image carrying surface with first and second upwardly inclined facets alternating as they extend away from the mirror and providing, respectively, first and second sets of image fragments of the first and second image components, facing forwards towards the spectator and rearward for reflection in the mirror respectively. On some of the tiles or blocks, the second sets of image fragments differ from the first set of image fragments, but in color only, so that second image component seen by reflection is not identical to the first image component seen by direct transmission. Nevertheless, as a result of the inclination of the facets required for effective viewing both from the front and by reflection in the mirror, the spectator can look down vertically on the image carrier/substrate to see the different color on the rearward facets sides during normal handling, while the remainder of the second image component is identical to the first image component which is also symmetrical, so that the resulting composite image can be readily predicted by casual observation.